Superfund Research Program News

March 16, 2013 Two student endeavors focused on environmental sciences initiatives have won the Gillings School of Global Public Health 2013 Gillings Student Organization Service Project Award. The projects were spearheaded by the Environmental Sciences and Engineering Student Organization (ENVRSO) and A Drink for Tomorrow. Each group will be awarded $1,500 to help… Read more »

Researchers in Rebecca Fry’s laboratory in the UNC Superfund Research Program have developed a novel strategy for predicting the biological pathways that can influence environmentally induced birth defects–findings which may provide insight into the prevention and treatment of these defects. In a study published in the March 2013 edition of Environmental Health Perspectives, postdoctoral researchers… Read more »

Julia Rager, former PhD student and now postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Rebecca Fry’s lab received the Syngenta Fellowship Award in Human Health Applications of New Technologies at the 2013 Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The award was presented for the project titled, “Elucidating the Relationship between Exposure-Induced DNA Damage and… Read more »

SRP researcher Dr. Rebecca Fry is helping to bring attention to a previously unrecognized water quality issue in North Carolina – arsenic in groundwater. Dr. Fry’s research on the presence of arsenic in private wells in North Carolina was featured in the article Water Rights and Wrongs in the January/February 2013 Issue of Carolina… Read more »

Dr. Damian Shea UNC SRP Researcher Damian Shea, of NC State University, presented findings from a study of the potential for exposure to and accumulation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other oil components in the food chain following the BP Deepwater Horizon well blowout during a symposium at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and… Read more »

February 25, 2013 Nour Abdo, Julia Rager and Jessica Wignall, students at Gillings School of Global Public Health, captured the top three awards in a poster competition held at the spring meeting of the North Carolina regional chapter of the Society of Toxicology on Feb.21 at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offices in Research… Read more »

At the 2012 SRP annual meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, the UNC Research Translation Core and Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting hosted a 4-hour science communication workshop to help SRP investigators tackle the challenges of communicating research findings to diverse audiences. The workshop featured current and former journalists and science writers , a… Read more »

NASA Satellite Image of BP Oil Spill When the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, it caused the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The main toxic component of this crude oil was a class of compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH); exposure to PAHs… Read more »

November 06, 2012 Trichloroethylene (TCE), a chemical that was often used as a degreaser and in dry cleaning, has been reclassified from a cancer “hazard” to “carcinogenic to humans” during an evaluation by 18 international scientists, including Ivan Rusyn, MD, PhD. Dr. Ivan Rusyn Rusyn is professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the Gillings… Read more »

October 31, 2012 How do plasticizers, such as diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), cause cancer? Mary Kushman, MD, a Master of Public Health candidate in environmental sciences and engineering at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, asked the question in her role as a fellow with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Human Health Risk… Read more »